Shawn Michaels on What Today’s WWE Wrestlers Are Missing

Shawn Michaels has worn a lot of hats in professional wrestling. In the ring, he was one of the most gifted performers the sport has ever seen. Outside of it, he was, by his own admission, one of the most difficult people to deal with. These days, as WWE’s Senior Vice President of Talent Development Creative, he sits somewhere in between. But before joining back up with the company, the notorious "bad boy" from the past had some disparaging words to share on today’s product.

Shawn Michaels on Today’s WWE Wrestlers

Shawn Michaels is a big part of today’s product and has been an invaluable source of support at WWE’s Performance Center in Orlando, Florida. He first joined the coaching staff there in late 2016, taking over the “finishing class” previously run by Terry Taylor, who had stepped away following neck surgery. That advanced class represents the final of four training levels at the facility, designed to prepare talents who are close to debuting on television. From there, his responsibilities grew steadily, and he began assisting with the writing of NXT television alongside his longtime friend Triple H.

When Triple H stepped back from his day-to-day duties in September 2021 due to a cardiac event, Michaels assumed full control of NXT programming. He was subsequently promoted to Senior Vice President of Talent Development Creative in September 2022, a role that sees him oversee both the creative direction and talent development side of the brand. He has also been responsible for shepherding NXT’s expansion into new markets, including the development of NXT Europe.

But before rejoining the company, he had some options on today’s product.

Shawn Michaels has a history of being a bit of a pot-stirrer, and even by his own admission, was a bit “difficult” to deal with during the 1990s. This was the nature of the business during that time. There was a no-nonsense attitude, and every man in the back fought for their spot, even if it meant stabbing people in the back to rise in ranks.

Much of that backstage ruthlessness was embodied by The Kliq, the infamous backstage group consisting of Michaels, Triple H, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, and Sean Waltman. The group’s grip on the WWF locker room throughout the mid-to-late 1990s is well documented, with many colleagues accusing them of politicking and using their influence to shape booking decisions in their favor. In their heyday, they operated with a kind of unapologetic self-interest that was far from unusual in that era’s locker room, but arguably took it further than most.

Nowadays, there’s more of a team culture in WWE, and everyone off-camera mostly seems to get along. Sure, there might be some personality clashes, but gone are the days of cliques ruling the roost in the back.

Shawn, no longer the troublemaker he once was, was interviewed before joining WWE again, where he compared today’s product to the past. Here’s what HBK had to say:

“There’s a lot of good, wonderful, decent young men in the business today, and because of that, the business suffers, you know what I mean? (laughs)

“We were all a bunch of no-good young guys who were taught by an even bigger bunch of no-good old-timers. There was a rebellious, take-no-prisoners, do n’t-take-any-crap-off-anybody, not-afraid-of-being-unpopular, pushing-the-envelope culture, and I think that helped.

“I mean, a great many of us got in trouble, and there have been some tragedies on top of that – but today, the product suffers because there isn’t that inbred attitude. I think they’re genuinely good guys, and the business is better for it from a ‘professional’ standpoint. But as a viewer, I want to see somebody with some cajones on ’em and stuff like that…”

Michaels continued, “I don’t want to be one of those bitter old-timers who continuously knock everything.

“I think, on the one hand, it’s very tough on the younger talent nowadays. They’re not having the luxury that many of us had, which is having four years of experience [working] countless different styles before we came to the WWE. They’re getting thrown from the frying pan into the fire.

“They don’t have a ton of experience. And the guys they’re working with are the same guys they trained with, for heaven’s sakes.

“Not to mention, they all train in the same gyms with the same people, and as a result, they all look the same.

“In the past, that guy came out in boots and tights and oil, and now you’re coming out in boots and tights. The chords in your song sort of sound the same as the chords in that guy’s song.

“Talent nowadays are just so happy to have the job and to be going out there that they don’t really think, ‘What can I do to make myself different?'”

There is a certain irony in Michaels raising these points, given that he now sits at the very top of the system responsible for training those same talents. He has acknowledged as much himself, saying in a 2023 interview that today’s atmosphere is “a much healthier” one than when he broke in, but that the tradeoff is a generation of performers who may lack the kind of edge that came from grinding through the territories and fighting for everything they had. For Michaels, both truths can exist at once: the locker room is better as a place to work, and harder to watch as a result.

Michaels is hardly alone in feeling this way. It’s a sentiment echoed by plenty of legends from his generation. But what makes his perspective uniquely interesting is that he now runs the very system he’s critiquing. Whether that means he’s working to fix it from the inside or simply made peace with the way things are is a question only time will answer.

What are your thoughts? Do you feel today’s product has improved due to the buddy-buddy nature of the business today, or do you miss the rough-around-the-edges, take-no-prisoners culture where real-life grudges played out in the ring? Sound off in the social media post you found this article in!

These stories may also interest you:

• Shawn Michaels and Vader: How HBK Sabotaged Vader’s WWF Career
• Hulk Hogan and Shawn Michaels: The SummerSlam Misfire
• Shawn Michaels and the Infamous Syracuse Incident

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